1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a navigation apparatus for providing information to vehicles, and a medium recording a program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a system for providing information to vehicles, conventionally there are for example; (1) those which display the position of other vehicles (communication between vehicles, 1:1), and (2) those which provide traffic information by means of VICS (between an information center and a plurality of vehicles).
FIG. 25 is a diagram showing an example of the construction of a conventional navigation system. In this figure, information providers 13 provide information (spot information and various related information accompanying the spot information) for users (drivers) of vehicles on which the units are mounted (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cvehicle unitsxe2x80x9d) 11. As shown in this figure, with the conventional navigation system, an information center 12 collects information individually from the information providers 13 and transmits the information to the vehicle units 11.
With the conventional navigation system described above, the information center has to decide in advance on the communication format and the like between the individual information providers. Moreover, it is necessary for the information center to convert the communication format when transmitting the collected information to the vehicle units. Thus, with the conventional navigation system, there has been the problem that the load on the information center is large.
On the other hand, when using the Internet, since the communication format is unified in a TCP/IP form, it is possible to collect information directly from computers around the world. The communication format of the Internet, however, is basically designed for personal computers, and hence it cannot be used for a navigation apparatus as it is. For example, even if the information obtained from the Internet (information of facilities and tourist spots, or the like) is desired to be set as a destination, since the Internet information (HTML file) has only display information (characters and the like), the information cannot be set as the destination of the vehicle.
In view of the above situation, it is an object of the present invention to provide a navigation apparatus which can directly utilize the information (information of facilities and tourist spots, or the like) obtained from the Internet.
It is an another object of the present invention to provide a medium on which is recorded a program for making a computer function as the abovementioned navigation apparatus.
The present invention comprises; a reception device for receiving an information file from an information server, a discrimination device for analyzing the received information file and discriminating a descriptor for a character display from a descriptor for a navigation function, a display function executing device for executing in the case of discriminating a descriptor for a character display, a character display based on the descriptor, and a navigation function executing device for executing in the case of discriminating a descriptor for a navigation function, a navigation function based on the descriptor. As a result, information files in which conventionally only data for screen display has been transmitted can be extended for the navigation function, and the descriptor for the navigation function contained in the extended information file can be discriminated to execute the navigation function.
Furthermore, the present invention is characterized in that a program is recorded which makes a computer function as; a reception device for receiving an information file from an information server, a discrimination device for analyzing the received information file and discriminating a descriptor for a character display from a descriptor for a navigation function, a display function executing device for executing in the case of discriminating a descriptor for a character display, a character display based on the descriptor, and a navigation function executing device for executing in the case of discriminating a descriptor for a navigation function, a navigation function based on the descriptor.
Preferably, the information file has the names of specific spots, characteristic information and positional information, the display function executing device displays the names of specific spots and characteristic information from the information file, and the navigation function executing device sets the positional information corresponding to a specific spot selected by a driver as a destination.
Preferably, the information server is a server on the Internet and the information file is an HTML file.
With the present invention, the reception device first receives the information file from the information server. The discrimination device analyzes the information file and discriminates the descriptor for the character display and the descriptor for the navigation function. Here, if the information file is discriminated as the descriptor for the character display, the display function executing device displays characters based on the descriptor. On the other hand, if the information file is discriminated as the descriptor for the navigation function, the navigation function executing device executes the navigation function.
Furthermore, with the present invention, the display function executing device displays the name of the specific spot and characteristic information from among the information files. The navigation function executing device sets positional information corresponding to the specific spot selected by the driver as a destination.
Moreover, with the present invention, the information server handles the information file as an HTML file on the Internet.
According to the present invention, the descriptor for the navigation function is received in the format of the information file, and the navigation function can be executed based on the descriptor.
In addition, according to the present invention, the names of specific spots, characteristic information and positional information are received, and from among these the name of a specific spot and the characteristic information can be displayed, and the positional information corresponding to a selected specific spot can be set as the destination.
Moreover, according to the present invention, the information obtained from the Internet (information on facilities and tourist spots, and the like) can be directly utilized with the navigation apparatus. Furthermore, according to the present invention, the information obtained from the Internet can be set on the navigation apparatus as the destination.